ir. Penny Kloprogge and dr. Jeroen van der Sluijs
1. Introduction/background of the proposal
1. Introduction/background of the proposal
Managing the risks of anthropogenic climate change is a societal process which has to deal with a long term complex issue under conditions of high and partly irreducible uncertainties and multiple value orientations of the many national and international stakeholders. The context of anthropogenic climate change is one of hard political pressure, values in dispute, high decision stakes and high epistemological and ethical systems uncertainties. Handling issues in such a post-normal situation requires the involvement of an extended peer community, involving stakeholders in the assessment process and in the quality control of the science (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1992, 1993; Nolin, 1995). In post normal science (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1992, 1993), technical discourse is not restricted to expert communities but is inclusive of non-specialist participants (stakeholders and citizens).
Participatory Integrated Assessment (PIA) is emerging as an approach that is suitable for accommodating the uncertainties, complexities and value diversities of issues such as climate change (Sors and Liberatore, 1997). The assessment process overlaps with the policy development process. Until recently the field of Integrated Assessment (IA) was dominated by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). Nowadays it is widely recognised that IAMs is not a complete IA methodology. IAMs are science-based tools, which can be used in a broader assessment process. Recognising the post normal characteristics of the issue of anthropogenic climate change, IA is a reflective and iterative participatory process that takes into account the social context in which scientific and political activities operate (Pereira, Gough and De Marchi, 1998).
Focus 4 of the Work plan of core 3 ("Interdependent changes in climate, land use, biogeochemical cycles and analysis of related policy options") of the SENSE Research School (Netherlands Research School for the Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment) deals with Integrated Assessment (SENSE, 1998). Within focus 4, two research clusters are distinguished: Integrated Assessment Modelling and Participatory Integrated Assessment.
The current proposal addresses the conditions that Integrated Assessment Models and the way by which they are used need to meet in a Participatory Integrated Assessment process. The project will also explore how these conditions can be met.
The existing generation of integrated assessment models (IAMs) of climate change has been designed without sufficiently taking into account the post normal character of the issue of anthropogenic climate change (Pereaira, Gough and De Marchi, 1998; Van der Sluijs and Jager, 1998; Schneider, 1998, van der Sluijs, forthcoming). Particularly, the IAMs fall short in the management of uncertainties and value diversity. Consequently these IAMs are not well suited to support PIA processes. Where other research projects within the research school SENSE seek to improve the management of technical uncertainties in IAMs, this project seeks ways to better take into account in IA Modelling and in IAM use in PIA, the value diversity that exists amongst the stakeholders involved in the climate policy debate.
Although the field of IA is much broader then the climate issue, this project will be restricted to IAMs and PIA processes that address climate change. The reason for this restriction is partly pragmatic (it connects the best with the current expertise within our department and within the SENSE research school) and partly because the major effort in the field of IA is directed to climate change. A further argument to focus on climate change is that it constitutes a classic example of post normal science.
Why participatory IA?
For a number of reasons, participation and extended peer review can help to increase the quality and acceptance of IA as scientific underpinning of climate policy. There are three types of rationales for broad stakeholder participation in IA: normative, substantive and instrumental (Stern and Fineberg, 1996).
The normative rationale for participation in IA is that in a democratic society, climate policy and its scientific foundation should obtain the consent of the stakeholders.
The substantive rationale is that relevant wisdom is not limited to scientific specialists and public officials. Participation stimulates the inclusion of more viewpoints, which in turn helps to rule out that you overlook something. Further, participation opens opportunities to make use of local knowledge and other extended facts. Extended facts are facts and insights that originate from other sources then scientific research. Participation by diverse groups and individuals will provide essential information and insights about a risk situation. For instance by identifying aspects of hazard needing analysis, by raising important questions of fact that scientist have not addressed, or by offering knowledge about specific conditions that can contribute more realistic assumptions in Integrated Assessment of climate change.
Participation is also essential for the examination, consideration and weighing of social, ethical and political values that cannot be addressed solely by analytic techniques but also require broadly participatory deliberation. Scientific analysis may not always be neutral and objective as a decision making tool, even when it meets all the tests of scientific peer review. Good scientific analysis is neutral in the sense that any scientist who knows the method can in principle obtain the same results. But the choice of method and the assumptions on which the method relies are not necessarily neutral and often involve subjective judgement and bias. Further, science is not necessarily neutral in and objective in its way of framing problems. By addressing these issues, extended peer review of the science used in PIA can improve the quality of the assessment. In this way, participation can help to avoid so called type-III errors: Formulating the wrong problem by incorrectly accepting the false meta-hypothesis that there is no difference between the boundaries of a problem, as defined by the analyst, and the actual boundaries of the problem (Raifa, 1968, redefined by Dunn, 1997).
The instrumental rationale for stakeholder participation in IA is that it may decrease conflict and increase acceptance of or trust in the scientific underpinning of environmental policies. Participation also can lead to a broadly shared problem definition and thereby help to increase the support for and implementability of solutions.
When addressing complex environmental policy issues in a participatory way, we have an other concern as well: the question of issue-competence. The scientific soundness of the resulting assessments needs to be warranted, if we want to base our policies on scientifically sound underpinnings. The division of roles between scientists and stakeholders in PIA and in extended peer review needs deeper consideration. In their reflective work on science for policy - and we share their position - Funtowicz and Ravetz have argued that although there is more than one legitimate interpretation of the science, this plurality of perspectives does not deny the special competence of scientists. It does mean that there is a mixing and blending of skills, partly technical and partly personal, of all those engaged that can enrich the comprehension of the whole.
Participation and Integrated Assessment Models
When the climate problem had entered the policy agenda in the late eighties, scenario analyses were needed to support the thinking about the question by how much greenhouse gas emission needed to be reduced in order to manage the risk. In this period, the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) developed IMAGE-1 (Integrated Model to Assess the Greenhouse Effect), which was a pioneer in climate IA-modelling. In the Netherlands, IMAGE 1 was used for such calculations in the influential RIVM report "Concern for Tomorrow" (Langeweg, 1988). This was a survey of the actual and future state of the environment and was written as the background document for the Netherlands National Environmental Policy Plan. Based on calculations with IMAGE 1, the report concluded that carbon dioxide emissions in the Netherlands should be reduced with 80% to keep climate change in the next century within the range of 1.5-4.5° C.
Responding to a growing demand for regional analysis and in reaction to scientific criticism on IMAGE 1, IMAGE 2.0 (Alcamo et al., 1994a) was developed. IMAGE 2 differs from the IMAGE 1 model in that is geographical explicit and it has a strong focus on land use change and feedbacks via vegetation changes. IMAGE 2.0 includes three modules: Energy-Industry, Terrestrial Environment and Atmosphere-Ocean. The model has global coverage and the spatial resolution varies across modules. The model permits experimentation with a wide variety of scenarios.
However, when the policy process moved on, more and more stakeholders became involved in the policy debate. One of the developments that emerged in response to the involvement of more and more actors, was a growing a need to make choices embedded in IAMs such as IMAGE more explicit and transparent and to give room to alternative perspectives on the climate problem. In response to that need, RIVM developed the TARGETS model (Rotmans and De Vries, 1997), which uses the classification of the Cultural Theory (distinguishing the individualist, the egalitarian and the hierarchist perspectives) to accommodate within the model different perspectives of the users of the assessments provided by TARGETS. The perspectives differ inter alia in their assumptions about the vulnerability of ecosystems, the role of technology development and the preferred management style, leading to different assessments for each perspective. The WRR (1994) has taken a similar approach using pre-defined classes of perspectives* to accommodate within their assessments the value diversity of the users of their assessments. Both the TARGETS approach and the WRR approach have been path-breaking in the sense that they acknowledge the possibility of multiple problem structures and recognise the legitimacy of different perspectives. The importance of accommodating multiple perspectives in assessments has also been recognised within the field of Technology Assessment, where it has led to a new approach known as Interactive Technology Assessment (Grin et al, 1997).
The TARGETS approach and the WRR approach have a common shortcoming, namely that they restrict the value diversity to three respectively four different static (ideal-typical) categories. Following the track started by TARGETS (or, if we look at the broader field of assessment studies, started by Schwartz and Thompson, 1990), a niche has emerged for a new generation of IAMs which accommodates value diversity but avoid the restriction to three pre-defined static categories. There is a need for more open, dynamic (interactive) forms of coping with value diversity and subjectivity, taking actual stakeholders as starting point rather than static theoretical categories of perspectives and value orientations.
An alternative approach to cope with value diversity and -more specifically- pluriformity in the science can be found in the Dialogue model by the KEMA. Dialogue is an IAM, which has been developed as an interactive decision-support tool for energy supply policy making. Dialogue simulates the cause effect chain of climate change, using monodisciplinary sub-models for each step in the chain. The chain starts with scenario's for economic growth, energy demand, fuel mix etc., leading to emissions of greenhouse gasses, leading to changes in atmospheric composition, leading to radiative forcing of the climate, leading to climate change, leading to impacts of climate change on societies and ecosystems. Rather than picking one main-stream monodisciplinary sub-model for each step -as most other IAMs do- Dialogue uses multiple models for each step (for instance, three different carbon cycle models, five different GCM model-outcomes, etc.), representing the major part of the spectrum of expert opinion in each discipline. Dialogue is set up in such a way that it facilitates the inclusion of new alternative models in each step, thereby accommodating a broader range of problem representations and providing much more flexibility with regard to problem structuring than other IAMs do. These features of Dialogue constitute a novel approach, which is very interesting to include in the analysis of this project.
Recently, European experiments with the use of IAMs in participatory IA have been carried out in the framework of the ULYSSES (Urban LifestYles, SuStainability and Integrated Environmental ASsessment) project. The ULYSSES project, funded by the European Commission (DG XII) has been designing and testing a procedure to allow informed citizens to express their judgments on climate policy. The particular approach taken is to use so-called "IA Focus Groups" and to use some tools of Integrated Assessment (IA) to stimulate the discussion in these groups. Designing an interface between IA-focus groups and computer tools is a central research task of ULYSSES. The focus group experiments have been conducted in seven urban regions throughout Europe: Barcelona, Venice, Athens, Zurich, Frankfurt (Rhine/Main), Manchester and Stockholm.
In a focus group small groups of citizens share a moderated discussion on climate risks and options for climate policy. In the ULYSSES experiments the following set-up was chosen: Each focus group meets for five individual sessions or for two consecutive days. In the first session environmental problems and climate change are discussed in a general way and in some groups the participants are encouraged to produce collages to illustrate their concerns. In the second session global issues are addressed using an IA model to stimulate the discussion. The third and fourth sessions focus on regional and local issues, using a regional IA tool to stimulate discussion. In the fifth session the participants produce a "citizens report" on the basis of the discussions in all sessions. The process is moderated by both a group moderator (guiding the discussions) and a model moderator (introducing and demonstrating the IA tools).
A number of IA tools have been used in the ULYSSES project. The experiences reported here are based on the use of three tools: IMAGE, TARGETS and PoleStar. We will briefly describe how these models were used in the focus group experiments.
As regards IMAGE 2.0, due to the complexity of the model it is not possible to run the model and get results for new scenarios during the course of a focus group. Supported by the IMAGE Group at RIVM, within the ULYSSES project the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research (PIK) generated a series of scenarios produced by the IMAGE 2.0 model. These scenarios can be used within focus group sessions to present „what if" kinds of questions at the global scale. These scenarios are not suitable for addressing either cost analyses associated with various atmospheric stabilization and emission reduction targets or to analyze local possibilities for action.
For the ULYSSES project the developers of the TARGETS model provided a special interface and a work package to inform model moderators how to introduce and use the model. The special interface presents the main causal links of the climate problem. Participants can change the major assumptions pertaining to economic, environmental and societal processes and explore different trends such as those for population growth or energy efficiency.
Pole Star has been used in ULYSSES focus groups to stimulate discussion about policy and lifestyle options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the regional level.
The findings of the project suggest so far that the IAMs were successful to convey to participants the temporal and spatial scale of climate change, the complexity of the system and the uncertainties in our understanding of it. However, it also turned out that despite considerable efforts, most models were not sufficiently user-friendly and transparent for participatory use in a IA focus group (Dahinden et al., 1999). From the ULYSSES experience, a list of qualities of the computer tools that are deemed important by citizens in relation to the usefulness of IAMs for a moderated discussion on climate risks and options for climate policy has been identified (Van der Sluijs, forthcoming). These qualities are: Strong interest in the regional level; Possibility to evaluate user-defined policy options; Realistic and credible inputs and results; Easy to follow, detailed, and flexible user manual; Understandable model presentation; Interactive and attractive user interface; Explicitness and understandability of the uncertainties; Need for adequate model moderation.
By analysing the limitations of IAMs in relation to the participatory setting, van der Sluijs (forthcoming) has proposed the following criteria that IAMs should meet in order to be useful for participatory IA processes":
Van der Sluijs (forthcoming) showed that these criteria are mutually consistent with the IAM qualities deemed important by citizens as inferred from the ULYSSES focus group experiments. Each required quality can be framed in terms of one or more of the proposed criteria and vice versa. However, the qualities listed are not sufficient to cover all implications of the conditions. For instance, none of the listed qualities corresponds with the need for making value laden assumptions variable, and both problem structuring and inclusion of local knowledge require more than a focus on the regional level and the inclusion of user definable policy options. These issues have remained unsolved and require a deeper consideration.
Although the ULYSSES project has made a major step forward in developing a methodology for a participatory IA process including IAMs and stakeholders in the deliberation process, the procedure can be criticised for unbalance in the required mutual learning process between scientists and stakeholders. It is great that the participants learn from the state of the art computer models and increase their understanding of the uncertainty and complexity of the climate problem. But what do the models and the modellers learn from the participants? The observed lack of transparancy of the models may well have contributed to a lack of debate on and scrutinisation of the IAM methodology and its underlying value-laden assumptions.
The current project focuses on three yet unresolved interrelated problems that are encountered when IAMs are used in participatory IA processes and that require deeper analysis and reflection:
In the course of the project, a selection of IAMs will be made to include in the analysis. The two IAMs used within the SENSE research school will be included any way: the IMAGE model developed by the RIVM and the Dialogue model developed by the KEMA. The IMAGE model has been used in participatory IA processes both in the European ULYSSES project (see appendix) and at the so called "Delft Workshops" (Van Daalen et al., 1998), which aimed at a dialogue between policy makers and IA modellers. Although the Dialogue model has yet hardly been used in participatory IA, the Dialogue model has a number of qualities which make it suitable for such use: it is transparent, easy to understand, highly interactive, it takes into account expert disagreement (by including different models for each step in the causal chain), it facilitates the inclusion of new alternative sub-models, it is available and it runs on a PC.
The use of Integrated Assessment Models in participatory IA has consequences for the kind of demands we should make upon IAMs and the way they are used. A participatory IA process involves experts, IAMs and stakeholders. In that context it is of critical importance to make value- laden assumptions highly transparent and user-variable in both natural and social scientific components of IAMs.
The objective of this project is to seek ways to better take into account in IA Modelling the value diversity that exists amongst the stakeholders involved in the climate policy debate. The project aims to contribute to the conceptual design of a new generation of IA computer tools which are subject to extended peer review and which facilitate a participatory IA process that treats value-laden assumptions explicit, and which includes extended facts.
The project seeks to answer the following central question:
How can the management of subjectivity, bias and value-laden assumptions in IAMs and in the process of IAM use in participatory IA be improved?
On the basis of our analysis in the preceding sections, this question can be operationalised into the following key research questions (note that this is a preliminary set of questions, in the course of the project, the focus will be narrowed):
With respect to the first question, a number of PIA projects are of importance to include in the analyses. These are projects are listed in the appendix. A selection will be made in the course of the project. The selection will include in any case the ULYSSES project, the Delft workshops of the IMAGE project and the PIA-part of the COOL project. Collaboration will be sought with the projects listed in the appendix which together mark out the research field to which this project aims to contribute and provides the international research community in which the project will be embedded.
The empirical part of the research focuses on a selection of IA models. This selection will be made in the course of the project and should be such that the models are sufficiently different in the way they deal with subjectivity, bias and value-laden assumptions to make the comparison fruitful. For strategic reasons, the selection will include in any case the IAMs used in the SENSE research school: the IMAGE model and the Dialogue model which both address climate change. Other interesting candidates include the TARGETS (Rotmans and De Vries, 1997) model, the QUEST model and regional models such as ISCAM (Integrated Sustainable Cities Assessment Method, Joe Ravetz, 1998) or PoleStar (developped by Stockholm Environmental Institute and used in the ULYSSES project).
The preliminary work-plan involves five phases which can be worked out in the following steps:
Phase 1 Getting familiar with the field
Phase 2 In depth analysis of the problem of subjectivity, bias and value laden assumptions in IAMs
Phase 3 Analysing the problems of extended peer review
Phase 4 Extended facts
Phase 5 Synthesis and writing of the thesis
The preliminary table of contents of the thesis reads as follows:
Title: Coping with value-diversity in Integrated Assessment Modeling of Climate Change
Chapter 1 Participatory IA of climate change
Chapter 2 The problem of subjectivity, bias, and value laden assumptions in IA modelling and PIA
[this list can serve as a preliminary typology to be revised and refined in the project]
Discussion of pros and cons, possibilities and limitations of each strategy.
Chapter 3 Extended peer review in IA modeling
Chapter 4 Extended facts in IA
Chapter 5 Conclusions
The planning of the research activities is given in the time schedule in appendix 2
The project is fully embedded in SENSE core 3 "Interdependent changes in climate, land use, biogeochemical cycles and analysis of related policy options", focus 4, "Integrated Assessment".
The project will seek close collaborate with the modellers of IMAGE at RIVM and Dialogue at the KEMA. This project also contributes to a better embedding of the Dialogue model in academic research activities.
The Department of Science Technology and Society has and its precursors have a long tradition in the study of issues of scientific rationality and democracy. The project fits well in the program of the department. The research carried out within the Department of Science, Technology and Society is focused on the (potential) contribution of Science and Technology to the realisation of a sustainable development of society. In this context several research clusters have been set up. The present proposal fits within the research cluster "Environmental Assessment and Management". The latter focuses on approaches to assessment and management of environmental risks. The present proposal contributes to this programme by developing new strategies for the management of subjectivity, value-laden assumptions, extended peer review and extended facts in the assessment of global environmental risks.
The current proposal concerns a "AIO-plaats" for four years.
The project will be supervised primarily by dr. Jeroen van der Sluijs. Prof. Dr. Wim C. Turkenburg will be the promotor, Dr. Jerry Ravetz will be second promotor. A "klankbordgroep" for the project will be erected in an early stage of the project, in which researchers from inter alia SENSE will participate.
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JvdS, 5-2-1999
Relevant projects that could be included in the analysis are inter alia:
- The ULYSSES project (Urban Life stYles SuSstainability and Environmental Assessment, commissioned by EC DG XII, part of fourth framework program), led by Prof. Carlo Jaeger (THD, Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany);
The ULYSSES project aims to develop an advanced methodology for Integrated Environmental Assessment (IA) in order to address the relations between urban lifestyles and climate change; and to foster a pluralistic debate on (local) policies intended to cope with climate change by integrating the use of computer models with a monitored social process (focus groups).
ULYSSES examines and tests the use of IA in the policy process with focus on the relations between "local" and "global", particularly between urban sustainability and climate change. The project assumes that computer models are necessary for effective (IA), but not sufficient. First, policy making depends crucially on finding options acceptable to citizens. Second, the high complexity of climate change precludes a complete and unique scientific description. Citizens routinely face decisions under non-unique descriptions, as democracy presupposes a variety of conflicting, yet legitimate interpretations. For both reasons, ULYSSES aims at including citizens and other users of IA into an advanced IA methodology. The tool for this is the IA-focus group, a micro-cosmos of social learning designed to facilitate the mutual learning between practitioners and users of IA.
See also the JRC page on the ULYSSES project at JRC
- The Visions project (commissioned by EC DG XII, part of fourth framework program), led by Prof. Jan Rotmans (International Centre for Integrative Studies (ICIS), Maastricht University);
The VISIONS project aims at participatory development of scenario's for a sustainable Europe.
- The GEA project (Global Environmental Assessment, a fellowship program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)), led by prof. Bill Clark, (Harvard University);
The goal of the GEA-project is to advance understanding of the role of formal assessment activities in societies' efforts to understand global environmental change.
- The project "Public Participation in Complex Policy: Democratization of Science in Europe and North America" at the "Center for the Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change", led by Janet Stocks, Carnegie Mellon University;
This project aims to develop scientifically sound methods of public participation in complex policy issues. It further addresses two broad questions. The first has to do with how to structure information about climate change so that it is useful to groups of citizens in discussing policy options. Our second question in phase two concerns how policy options devised by non-experts compare with those devised by experts.
- The Delft-workshops of the IMAGE-project;
In 1995 and 1996 a series of workshops (the 'Delft workshops') on "Using the IMAGE 2 model to support climate negotiations" has taken place. These workshops were attended by the IMAGE 2 modelling group and policy-makers of the Dutch Ministry of Housing Physical Planing and the Environment. The experiences with participation of policy-makers in the application of the IMAGE 2 model are very relevant to the current proposal.
- The project "Lay knowledge, sustainability and integrated environmental assessment" led by Steve Yearly and Peter Baily (University of York/Stockholm Environmental Institute).
This project investigates the way in which the public use and understand information from a computerized model of the air quality in Sheffield. Building on group interviews with a selection of local communities and interest groups (for example parents, nature conservationists, owners of small businesses) the research will investigate how people use information from the model. At the same time, it will examine how they view the model and investigate how official information is integrated with their own perceptions of air pollution issues.